


the long kiss goodbye

by admiralty



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Near Death, Slow Romance, mulder’s brain disease ahoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-06 23:01:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18860725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/admiralty/pseuds/admiralty
Summary: “Maybe Scully wouldn’t approve. Maybe this course of action is, in fact, selfish and irresponsible. But if these are truly the final weeks or months of his life, he decides he’s earned the right to be selfish.”A look at Season 7 through the eyes of a dying Mulder. Angst ahead.*Listen to the audio versionhere.*





	the long kiss goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of folks have trouble buying the alien brain disease, but my masochistic angst-loving ass likes the idea that Mulder is learning he’s dying just as he’s starting his relationship with Scully. 
> 
> (Of note: the timeline for season 7 is frustratingly suspect, but I’ve laid out every episode as aired unless dates are specified within the episode, i.e. Rush and Chimera, which must take place out of airing order due to dates indicated within the episodes. I’ve included every episode except First Person Shooter because we know that dumbass episode never happened.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life is fleeting. He’s known this for some time now. He’s stared death directly in the face more times than he can count.

Whether the target of deadly conspiracy or simply going through day to day life as a federal field agent he can recognize death. He can feel its approach each time. And every single time thus far has been the same: escape.

His reason for living has been singular, his goal unrelenting, his passion all-consuming: truth. It’s held his focus for so much of his life that now, almost a decade into this quest, he’s starting to realize he hasn’t been doing much living at all.

For years, the truth he’s searched for has eluded him. But what he knows now is more than he ever dreamed he’d discover: his physiology is part alien. He knows this as surely as he knows the sky is blue, the earth is solid, that he is a man. He can feel it. He needs no proof, no physical evidence, no science this time, because the truth is inside him.

He wouldn’t know where to start with the science, anyway. Fox Mulder is no scientist, he’s just in love with one.

  
  
  


**the sixth extinction**

 

He feels pain, and little else at all except her presence when she enters the hospital room. It’s calm, warm, safe.

It’s Scully.

When she touches his hand, he can feel it throughout his entire body, in every nerve ending and through every vein right into his heart, like each and every time. And then the pain seems to disappear. She alone has that power.

Her eyes glisten as she looks into his. “Mulder, please. Hold on… don’t leave me…

_...I love you.”_

The last part she doesn’t say. But he hears it anyway. He’s wanted to hear it for so long.

He would say it back if he could. He’s strapped to a hospital bed, unable to move, hovering near a death that, this time, he might not escape. But in this moment, finally hearing these words bouncing around the mind of Dana Scully, he feels invincible.

  
  
  


**amor fati**

 

This hallway has seen so many things; has watched them grow over the years in ways unknown to most. It sees her coming, it sees her going. It sees him coming, it sees him going. Together, apart. In sync and out. It’s sacred ground for them.

 _“Scully, I love you”_ didn’t work before. It’s not her fault, really; he was under the influence and she probably thought he was crazy. But when she stands in his hallway now, he doesn’t want to be mistaken. There are no barriers this time, no bees.

 _You were my constant, my touchstone._ He holds her face and gazes into her eyes. It’s more than “I love you.” It transcends “I love you.”

She responds in kind. _And you are mine._ It’s a vow, tailor-made for the two of them. He sees the same love in her eyes that he heard earlier, and although he’s lost the ability to read her mind he doesn’t have to. Seeing is believing for Mulder.

He wants to kiss her, for real, because he knows a kiss will not be misunderstood. It will not be misconstrued. They’ve been friends for such a long time it feels so, so difficult now to make that leap, to make his intent clear. But he wants to, desperately.

It seems as if she wants to as well, but instead she tilts his head down and gives him a kiss on his forehead, on the bandage that covers up his latest run-in with death. She’d saved his life again; she’s done it so often he’s practically accustomed to it.

Her kiss is full of love and meaning, but not the precise meaning he wants right now. He loves her, of course he does. Of course she knows it. But he is _in_ _love_ with her.

His eyes close and he smiles at the silliness of it all, how they’ve made it so far, and how certainly there will be plenty of time to figure this all out. They are still young, after all, and he’s not going anywhere.

But then, just as he’s resigned himself to another retreat, another year or two of waiting, she does something he does not expect: her thumbs trace a soft trail down to his lips, uncharted terrain, with longing he can now be certain of. He can see that she wants to kiss him there. She wants to change them. But she isn’t ready yet.

He wants to change them, too. He wants to change his life.

She turns with a smile and leaves, and he closes his eyes again in acceptance of this, of whatever it is, this undefinable thing they share that no one could ever emulate. He will be whatever she wants him to be, whenever she wants it.

He’s been at the helm of the ship that has charted Scully’s course for years. This leap must be her choice, her decision. And he will wait for her as long as it takes.

  
  
  


**hungry**

 

Scully gave him a clean bill of health back in July but after several weeks have passed he feels sharp pains in his head that come and go. He doesn’t want to worry her, so he goes to get a physical without her knowledge, specifically requesting an MRI brain scan. Hoping and expecting to find absolutely nothing.

What they find isn’t nothing. It’s most definitely something. And now he has something to keep his eye on, to worry about. A truth he hadn’t wanted to discover.

The doctors are stumped. He can’t tell them he suspects the reason they can’t identify this disease is because it’s alien in origin. They have no tools, no context. No capacity to believe him.

And what would Scully say? What could she say? She wouldn’t know how to help him even if _she_ believed him, and she worries about him enough.

Maybe this is nothing. Maybe whatever it is will go away. He cannot treat something he doesn’t understand. There’s nothing else for him to do right now but deny it. So he does.

It’s summer in Orange County, California; hot, but bearable. He and Scully sit in a fast food restaurant digging into a couple burgers. He tries to turn his focus back to the case, back to their main suspect. His brain might be in trouble but his gut is dependable as ever.

“Why the brain, Mulder?” Scully says out of nowhere.

“What?” he asks, alarmed. _How could she know?_

“The brain. Why is the killer going after human brains?” she asks. _Oh. The case._ “If hunger is his primary motivator, aren’t there more… accessible sources of meat?”

He shrugs. “I hear brain is a delicacy.”

She rolls her eyes and smiles, turning away, looking out the window. Whenever she’s not paying attention nowadays he becomes bolder. She looks absolutely radiant, wearing some kind of pink tank top thing underneath her usual blazer. _Pink, for chrissake._ He can’t recall a time when Scully wore pink in the entire time they’ve known each other.

Wondering if this is intentional, if perhaps some subconscious underlying femininity is eager to make itself known to him, he allows himself to gaze, his eyes drifting lower than he might usually dare. Her lapel is pushed aside just enough for him to notice she’s foregone undergarments today. It may be hot as hell outside, but he thanks his own lucky stars that here inside Lucky Boy Burger the air conditioning is working just fine.

He’s about to tear his eyes away when she glances back at him. She takes another bite of her burger and smiles. He’s pretty sure he’s been caught, but she doesn’t seem to mind. She grins as she chews and it’s sexy as hell.

Flirting with Scully like this is fun. It feels so new, and it’s such a relief that she’s finally flirting back. It’s a change, maybe a small one, and change is good, he thinks. But for now, he redirects his focus back to Rob Roberts, their prime suspect. There’s still a murderer at large, and the work comes first.

The work always comes first.

  
  
  


**rush**

 

It’s November. He doesn’t know how serious this illness is, not yet. But it’s weaved its way into his life at the worst possible time. He wants to tell Scully how he feels about her but now his world has been thrown into an unparalleled state of upheaval. She’d probably be pissed if she knew he’d gone to another doctor after everything they’ve been through together. So rather than tell her about it, he waits, and hopes. And investigates.

Scully inserts Max Harden’s brain scans into the lightbox, their second case in a row that’s dealt directly with the brain. He can’t help but wonder if the universe is trying to tell him something, but he doesn’t want to listen.

He’s been pain-free for weeks and avoiding the doctor. Instead, he’s been focusing on his other doctor, the one who makes his heart beat faster. The way she tugs on his tie a little when she talks to him. Or the way he’ll get a smile now rather than an arched eyebrow in response to his dumb jokes. This actually feels like courting behavior. For the first time perhaps since he met her, he lets himself believe it isn’t all just in his head anymore.

She’s dressing a bit differently lately and he’s noticed. She unbuttons a couple more shirt buttons than she normally would, as if she knows it drives him absolutely crazy. And her eyes look different too, when she watches him. Knowing she loves him has allowed him to see it more clearly, to believe it. He doesn’t think a more beautiful pair of eyes ever existed and he kicks himself for never really appreciating them before. Seven years with this living, breathing, flesh and blood woman so close to him day in, day out, and he’s scarcely had the chance to acknowledge her as such.

He wants to kiss her but he’s a bit worried she might punch him, like last time. It wasn’t really Scully, but it sort of was, and he’d expected it. It would definitely be a risk. Like when he told her he loved her and she didn’t believe him. That hurt even more than the punch did.

He supposes any time one takes a risk in love, getting hurt is a possibility. Between two normal people, things might escalate quickly. But between the two of them, as it ever was, they’re still just... slowpoking around.

  
  
  


**millennium**

 

Perhaps it’s the millennium approaching, or some kind of misguided optimism deep down inside, but he hasn’t gone to the doctor lately. He desires the truth but fears it at the same time.

As far as Scully is concerned, he feels braver than ever. The ball drops, their lips finally touch, the world doesn’t end, and she doesn’t punch him, either. In fact, she smiles at him, more than tolerant of his decision to make a move.

But then he realizes he’s fucked up again. This kiss was safe. Harmless.

New Year’s.

As usual with the two of them, context is everything, and he fears he’s been misunderstood yet again. Three hundred sixty four other nights would have been preferable to this one.

His mind drifts to a moment two years ago when they’d been so, so close to a kiss. There had been electricity in the air that night, five years of pent-up longing and desire bubbling up inside him, perhaps inside her, too. What might have happened if they hadn’t been interrupted?

He knows. He knows exactly what would have happened, whether they were ready for it or not. The energy behind that near-kiss was that of a freight train. Tonight’s energy is merely softly flapping wings of a butterfly.

 _Nothing wrong with butterflies,_ he thinks. And she’s allowed it. It’s another step for them, he’s just not sure in which direction. And he will not push. It must be her decision. 

  
  
  


**the goldberg variation**

 

It seems ironic that Mulder should cheat death with Henry Weems in his general vicinity. The luckiest man alive has been bad luck for everyone else around him. Mulder should have been flattened by a bus or thrown off a skyscraper by now.

Instead the bullet grazes his shoulder, leaving just a flesh wound. A pinch, a sting. Nothing. The luckiest man alive seems to be Mulder, at least today.

“Let me check it,” Scully says as they get into their rental car. “You don’t want it to get infected.” She starts to unbutton his shirt. He lets her because, well, she’s unbuttoning his shirt.

She folds it down enough to push up the sleeve of his undershirt and inspect his injury, which Mulder knows is just superficial enough to earn an eye roll. But she doesn’t roll her eyes. She carefully peels up his bandage to look, deems him uninfected, and slowly redresses him.

“Looks good,” she says distractedly.

“You like playing doctor, Scully?” he grins. He hopes the question sounds more innocent than he feels.

“Only with you, Mulder,” she replies. Is she humoring him, or flirting back? She very unnecessarily rubs his bicep a bit as she rolls his sleeve down, and gives him a smile that renders the answer to that question irrelevant.

“Thanks for looking out for me,” he says with absolute sincerity. “I’m not used to being taken care of.”

“You’d think you would be by now,” she points out as she begins to button his shirt back up. She’s not wrong. She’s the one who takes care of him. She’s the one who’s always taken care of him. “Anyway, if I were a practicing doctor, maybe I’d have more than just you to take care of.”

He knows she’s being playful, but he checks in, anyway. “Is... that what you want, Scully?”

She buttons his last button, and her hands linger at his collar, straightening it out, stroking the material beneath her fingers. She looks up at him with eyes that tell him the truth.

“No.”

  
  
  


**orison**

 

He never thought Donnie Pfaster would re-enter either of their lives, let alone Scully’s safe space. She’s tough as nails but even she has her limits, her boundaries, and that monster has invaded one of them.

Mulder is quite used to those particular boundaries. Their entire relationship has orbited around arbitrary rules, imaginary lines; ones he’s now having difficulty keeping himself from crossing.

Her overnight bag has been discarded onto his couch upon his insistence she stay at his place after the attack. He watches her standing in front of his desk, looking out his apartment window, her back to him, pensive.

She’s beautiful, a goddess, despite the bruises and scratches. Her titian hair is short and sleek; sexier than it’s ever been. Maybe she got it cut? By the time he can usually work up the nerve to ask, it’s grown out again.

He can’t help himself from coming up behind her, wrapping his arms around her torso. He’s never done this before. It feels intimate, domestic, and he doesn’t know why he does it but it doesn’t matter because she allows it.

He knows she’s thinking about having pulled that trigger. He knows she’s tearing herself apart inside. The idea of Scully worrying there could be an evil bone in her body is abhorrent to him; he’s never known anyone so selflessly good in his life.

“Are you gonna be okay?” he asks softly.

She nods. “Yeah, I will be.” She brings her hands up to cover his, and leans back into his chest.

“You did the right thing, Scully,” he insists. “It may not feel this way now, but… you did your job. I hope you can see it that way.”

She sighs. “That moment will be hard to forget, Mulder. It was only a moment but… it will stay with me forever, I think.” She’s quiet for a moment. “Reverend Orison was right. The devil’s instant is our eternity.”

He just holds her close, wishing he could think of words that would make her understand how good she is, how perfect she is in his eyes. How nothing could ever change that. How, whatever the devil may think, that will be his eternity.

He suddenly feels brave again. Out of some imagined apparition of a habit he brings his face around next to hers to plant a soft kiss at the corner of her mouth. He does it so naturally, so automatically, it surprises him, and it’s over before he’s even thought it through. She doesn’t react straight away, but she does after a moment, turning her face away from his lips.

She’s still not ready. Suddenly he feels like a complete shit for taking advantage in a vulnerable moment.

“Sorry,” he whispers. “I’m sorry.”

“No, Mulder,” she whispers back as she turns around, not looking him in the eye. “I am.”

She holds him, nuzzling her face into his chest, breathing deeply, sighing. But he knows her sounds by now, at least the innocent ones, and can tell she’s disappointed.

He is disappointed too. They could be running out of time.

  
  
  


**the amazing maleeni**

 

It’s January and they are out on the west coast again. He wonders if he’s just tired of the cold weather; maybe subconsciously he’s seeking out warmth and light. But the case was intriguing as hell, and he knew Scully would follow him. She always does.

“Beats your quarter trick,” she smirks as they leave the prison after her demonstration of agility.

“You clearly have an unfair advantage,” he replies. He’s trying very, very hard not to let his mind wander where it wants to regarding Scully and this newly discovered flexibility of hers.

She shrugs and smiles, and he knows her well enough to know she probably won’t continue down this particular avenue of flirting. So he switches gears.

“What would your final performance be, Scully? If you knew you were going out, like Maleeni, how would you do it with a bang?”

He surprises himself with the question. He hadn’t realized the impact of this case upon his own life and his own mortality until this moment. He’s been in a remarkably good mood the past few days, and the pain has been so infrequent lately. When he’s on a case with Scully it’s easy to forget.

“Good question,” she says. He lets her think for a minute, and wonders. Maybe her answer will be altruistic, something that would change the world. Or maybe she’d just want to prove him wrong, once and for all.

What she does say surprises him. “I wouldn’t want to go out with a bang. I think I would just want the people I love to know I loved them,” she says. “That I cared about them. That they made my life worth living.”

She doesn’t look at him, and as much as he wants to believe she’s talking about him, it doesn’t count until she tells him. And she won’t know how he feels until he tells her. But the closer he gets to that reality, the closer he gets to that particular truth, the more terrified he becomes. And they certainly seem to be closer to it than ever before.

“So boring, Scully,” he replies playfully, and he can tell from her expression she was expecting him to answer this way. To make a joke, to make light.

He wishes now he hadn’t said it. He wishes he’d just told her the truth. _I do know, Scully. I know how you feel. I feel the same way._

It’s possible he may not be around for much longer. He doesn’t want to believe it, but it’s possible. And if that’s the case, would her knowing he’s in love with her hurt her less? Or more?

  
  
  


**signs and wonders**

 

He’s never really thought too much about it before, but he probably always assumed he’d die this way: in the field, in the line of duty, going out like a hero with Scully holding his hand. Death by snakes, in this case. She could lose him at any moment, brain disease or no brain disease.

That kind of death would be easier, expected. They both assumed these risks, however unforeseen, when they joined the Bureau. She couldn’t be angry at him for dying like this.

Scully is monitoring him very closely, and he’s concerned the truth about his health might come out now, when he isn’t ready to face it. But as he suspects, there’s no reason for these doctors to examine his head. ‘Alien brain disease’ is impossible to diagnose, especially when human doctors don’t know what they’re looking at, or for. It’s made it easier to keep his condition a secret.

 _Be smart down here,_ Reverend O’ Connor had said to him, pointing at his heart. Oddly, he feels like not telling her is being smart with his heart, if not with his head.

He holds a hand over his own heart now and can feel it beating, strong and sure. This isn’t over, not yet. He’s still alive for a reason, he must be.

  
  
  


**sein und zeit**

 

It’s been months since he first learned of his illness, and there has been no sign of improvement. His last checkup showed more deterioration but there’s nothing to treat; just residual damage from the surgery. As if parts of his brain are slowly dying, going out like tiny light bulbs, one by one.

Other than the occasional pain there are no outward symptoms. He doesn’t know what to expect, there is absolutely zero precedent for his condition. And Scully hasn’t noticed anything is amiss. He’s not sure how she could.

He still wants to believe there will be a change, an upturn. He’s so determined to survive now it feels like some kind of cruel joke, and he’s angry.

Angry and alone.

His mother must have suffered so much to do this to herself. To quietly endure and persist without telling a soul about her own illness. It breaks his heart to think of her this way, but the irony isn’t lost on him.

Scully is the only person he has left in the world and he clutches her more tightly than he ever has before. In this moment he worries she might disappear too, that if he doesn’t physically cling to her she might evaporate without explanation. Just like his mother.

He tries not to think of how Scully will feel the day he dies without explanation.

“She was trying to tell you to stop; to stop looking for your sister,” Scully pleads. “She was just trying to take away your pain.” Her voice breaks as she sees him cry. She’s never seen him cry like this, he’s quite certain, and he knows that it’s really Scully telling him _stop._ What she’s really trying to do is be the one to take away his pain. To be the one to take care of him, like she always has.

As he holds her close, he thinks about how his own quest for his lost sister has affected Scully. Not only her direct involvement in the conspiracy itself, because that he certainly thinks about quite a bit, but how his own emotional state can make her feel, how his pain is hers as well by default. How he can wreck her in the blink of an eye.

Maybe he will never stop hurting, but he doesn’t want Scully to hurt for him. He can sympathize with his mother’s decision. He feels it considerably.

He must forgive her for this, he must, because he’s doing the same thing.

  
  
  


**closure**

 

He’s had his fair share of bad days on this job. But today is the worst kind of day imaginable. Dozens of children in the ground, uncovering them one by one, pain growing and diminishing every time one is revealed not to be Samantha. The ache is familiar; none of their chests are sporting cut-out valentine hearts but they all might as well be.

He pinches the bridge of his nose; the pain in his head seems to flare up when he’s particularly stressed. Scully is watchful and guarded. She experiences the devastation in her own way.

He doesn’t know how to feel when they don’t find Samantha, but he does know he’s exhausted. “I just want it to be over,” he tells Scully, and for perhaps the first time he truly means it.

When he reads his sister’s words aloud, each one hurts worse than the last. Knowing what she suffered, having been the one to fail her all those years ago. Everything he feared had indeed come to pass, and faced with this truth he now wishes he didn’t know it.

Scully takes his hand, reminding him that even though he’s lost his mother, even though he’s truly lost Samantha, he is not alone. He will never be alone, not really, because he has her.

_I want to believe so badly in a truth beyond our own, hidden and obscured from all but the most sensitive eyes._

He stares up into the stars, wanting desperately to believe Samantha is among them. That she’s safe, and free. His own eyes want to see this truth. Not the difficult one he has just learned.

Tonight Mulder sleeps deeply; he hasn’t done so in months. And he dreams of his dead mother, but she is smiling, at peace. In his dream she leans down and whispers into his ear.

_“Darling… it’s time to let go. Please change your life, Fox. It’s time to be free.”_

He dreams of happiness, of Scully.

He dreams of freedom.

  
  
  


**x-cops**

 

A heavy weight is off his shoulders and he can breathe again.

They’re back in Los Angeles, and he sits in the police cruiser with Deputy Wetzel. The camera crew was a surprise, but a welcome one. If this creature is real, maybe he can at last be validated. Maybe he will at last be taken seriously.

“You know, I’ve been on the job eighteen months. All I ever wanted to do,” Wetzel is saying. “Right out of the gate, I get some kind of rep like I’m crazy? I mean, you know how cops are. How’s somebody supposed to live that down?”

Mulder shakes his head to himself. He wants to tell the young cop he gets it, he really does. But he has a feeling Wetzel will never own it the way Mulder does. Wetzel doesn’t want to have to live this down. He’s no Spooky Mulder.

“I don’t know,” Mulder admits. He really doesn’t. “I guess… just do good work.”

They drive through the streets of Los Angeles in silence for a couple minutes.

“So… you and your partner,” Wetzel says cautiously, finding an opening. “You investigate stuff like this all the time? You know, weird stuff?”

Mulder nods. “Pretty much.”

“So… you’ve seen something like this before, then?”

“I’ve seen quite a bit, Deputy.”

Wetzel nods. “I appreciate that. It’s not easy to admit to someone else, as I’m sure you know.”

“Trust me, I know,” Mulder replies. There was a time when it was difficult for him to admit the things he believed, the strange methods he applies to his job. But after a while it became part of him, and it still is.

_Change your life, Fox._

His mother’s words echo in his ears as he reflects upon the life he’s been living. All the things he’s missed over the years because of his obsessive nature. ‘Ashamed’ isn’t the correct word; he’s never been ashamed of the work he does, or the goals he’s pursued. But perhaps ‘careless’ is a word he can now assign new meaning to. He’s been careless with his life and what it’s meant.

When all is said and done, what will he have to show for himself? His legacy, as it stands, will be that of a madman, most likely. The only person who truly understands him is Scully.

The _blip blip_ of the siren sounds in his ears as the deputy turns into their destination. He smiles in the knowledge that, of all the hundreds of cases he and Scully worked on together, all the monsters and conspiracies and paranormal activities they’ve witnessed or not witnessed over the years, she will never ask for proof of his sincerity.

Scully will always believe in him, even after he’s gone.

  
  
  


**theef**

 

It’s strange to think Scully could believe that Orell Peattie might have been able to save his daughter. That she would entertain voodoo as a possible cure, even consider such an option to have any medicinal value to obtain just a few more minutes of time with a loved one.

Funny how time and experience changes people, even Dana Scully.

_You do keep me guessing._

He doesn’t doubt her care for him, or her love. He won’t forget the power of the words he heard inside her mind all those months ago. Would she cling to such a method to save his life? Would she exhaust every avenue, search every continent, even for things she doesn’t believe in?

Would she spend every minute of every remaining day they have together trying to stop the inevitable?

Of course she would. And this is not what he wants.

  
  
  


 

**en ami**

 

_“She says she’s fine.”_

_Fine_.

He and Scully never came up with some kind of secret code, some way of communicating trouble or imminent danger to the other. But he doesn’t need one. “I’m fine” is universal Scully code for “I am definitely not fine.”

The fear rising up within him is real, the fear of losing her. He’s felt it before, yes, but it’s evolved over the years. First the fear of losing his partner, his confidant. The one person he trusts above anyone. Then the fear of losing a friend, a real friend, a true friend.

Now, it’s the fear of losing the person he loves. He’s loved her always, but his experience of fearing that specific loss is new. And it’s absolutely terrifying.

He can’t sleep. He never sleeps, not really, but when Scully is in trouble it’s worse. He sits up on the couch as he rubs his temple, the pain intense this evening, when he hears a soft knock at the door.

He knows her knock like he knows everything about her; the tilt of her head, her sigh of exasperation, the touch of her hand. He feels immense relief and a wave of nausea at the same time. _What did that bastard do to her? What did he want with her?_

He opens the door and she’s there, her posture hunched, guilty looking. He’s confused by this but does not hesitate to pull her into his arms tightly.

“I’m fine, Mulder,” she says into his shoulder. _Fine._ She doesn’t return his hug and he pulls back, closing the door behind her.

“What happened, where did he take you? Did he hurt you?”

She shakes her head, the guilt radiating off her like waves.

“What? What is it, what’s wrong, Scully?”

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m sorry I lied to you. I hated doing it but… I had to.” She’s finding it hard to look him in the eye. “He told me I couldn’t tell you, or…”

Suddenly everything makes sense. The cancer man didn’t kidnap her, or take her against her will. He lured her in like the snake he is, he manipulated her, and she trusted him. And somehow here she is, back on his doorstep, alive. What did he get out of this? What did she give to him that he wanted? He doesn’t even want to think about it.

“He didn’t take you, did he?” he asks her quietly. “You went willingly.”

She nods, still not looking at him.

“You knew I wouldn’t like it so you lied.”

“No, I… I had no choice. What he was offering… Mulder, if it was true, it was worth everything.”

“ _If_ it was true,” he scoffs.

She reaches into her coat pocket and presents a small disc to him. “This will save countless lives. I had to.”

Mulder takes the disc. “What is it?”

Scully looks at the disc. “He told me it’s the ultimate cure. For all disease. And that… it’s extraterrestrial in origin.”

 _An extraterrestrial cure._ He wants to believe, but he’s been down this road too many times with Spender. He won’t do it again. “Our good friend, the cancer man. Out to save lives. And you believed this nonsense?”

“He was talking about his legacy, and his regret,” she insists. “He said he wants to make right. He sounded sincere.”

“There is nothing he could possibly say that’s sincere. He’s a liar, and you know that!” His volume is rising along with his blood pressure. He doesn’t want to be upset with her but he is.

“He’s dying, Mulder.”

The words hang in the still air of the apartment. It’s maybe the one thing she could say to get him to reconsider the man’s motives.

 _Dying_. Of what? He was beginning to think nothing could take out that son of a bitch. He looks at her questioningly. “How do you know?”

“I’ve known since I saw him last, when your mother died. He’s ill. Something about the effects of a surgery.”

A surgery? He suddenly thinks of his own surgery. He knows the cancer man was behind it. Snippets of those lonely hours strapped to an operating table still come back to him in flashes, but nothing concrete. Diana’s face, Spender’s face. When he awoke to find Scully holding him, he’d had trouble discerning which memories were real and which were part of his dream. All of it was a blur, images in his mind, and he was grateful for it at the time; none of it seemed like anything he’d want to be awake for, or remember.

But this knowledge, that the cancer man is dying from the effects of a surgery, has jarred a new memory loose: of the cancer man lying beside him on that operating table.

What was he after? What had he been doing to Mulder? Whatever Mulder had, Spender wanted it. Maybe he went further than he ever had before to get it. And maybe that’s why he’s sick.

Maybe the cancer man is the reason Mulder is sick now, too. And whatever Scully saw in him on their little escapade might be something she will see in Mulder soon enough: deterioration. Death.

He looks at her blankly, not knowing what to reveal. Is he holding the cure to his own illness? Could it be possible? And if so, did Spender use Scully to cure himself?

That fucking asshole. That _fucking asshole_. He’s taken everything, _everything_ from him. He can’t muster up the sympathy Scully seems capable of, he simply can’t. And now he’s just plain angry.

“I can’t believe you fell for his bullshit, Scully.”

She snatches the disc back out of his hand. “It’s not bullshit,” she protests. “I saw it, Mulder, he showed me proof it works. When you see it for yourself, you’ll know I did the right thing.”

“A thousand to one there’s nothing on that disc, Scully. He fooled you. And if you think for a second that cigarette smoking son of a bitch is interested in anyone other than himself, you’ve only fooled yourself.”

Scully closes her eyes, frustrated. He can appreciate the difficulty of her position. Her pure heart and noble spirit would lead her anywhere for the chance to save millions, even to dance with the devil himself. It’s just who she is.

But he’s in love with her. He recognizes his own selfishness, but he doesn’t want her to put herself at such risk.

She isn’t aware CGB Spender is his father, he hasn’t shared that disturbing bit of news with her. But he can’t forget it, he can’t unlearn it. And now it seems as if the two of them, father and son, are headed down the same dark path.

He slaps the disc a couple times against his hand, a challenge, his eyes fiery. He goes to his phone, dials the Gunmen. He’s angry now, angry at her for putting herself in the power of his worst enemy. For trusting him at all.

But mostly he’s angry at himself for failing her.

  
  


 

**all things**

 

The tension from Scully’s little road trip with Spender lasted well into the next morning, neither of them wanting to admit fault. Neither of them being entirely forthcoming. She’d been irritated by Mulder’s assumptions she would join him on yet another ridiculous escapade in her eyes, and he recognized he’d been doing what he always does with his problems, and with her: running away. He’s so tired of running away from her, from his own fears and doubts. But his feelings are becoming too strong to ignore or contain. He doesn’t know what else to do anymore.

However, as usual, they’ve put the tension behind them and moved forward. He’s glad she didn’t actually accompany him overseas or her annoyance would have been perfectly justified.

Now they’re comfortable on his couch, sunken in, feet up. The fish tank gurgles next to them. He likes her here.

"Thanks for not giving me a hard time, Scully. You know, about the lack of crop circles and huge waste of the bureau’s time and money,” he concedes. “Your voice of disapproval didn’t leave my head the entire flight home.”

“See? You didn’t need me there after all.” She smiles and stretches. “Well, while your trip turned out to be a big nothing, I was right here at home, going through… _something_.”

She’d given him the cliff’s notes version on the way back to his apartment, about Daniel Waterston, and a bit of their history. How she’d tried to save him, and how it might have worked. How she’ll never, ever know for sure.

“I saw something in that temple, Mulder. It was some kind of vision. A series of moments going by so fast. I thought maybe it was some kind of message from God, like the kind of thing that happens when you die.” She rests her head on the back of the couch. “I saw my mom, my dad, Melissa…” she turns toward him. “You.” He smiles. “And then I saw Daniel, dying. His heart was black. It wasn’t my life, but it was a life. And it was ending.”

Mulder listens and lets her speak.

“He had so much shame and anger and fear he was holding onto all these years. It was killing him, I know it was. It may very well still be. And he’s running out of time.”

He knows she’s talking about Waterston, that she can’t possibly know his thoughts on his own mortality. But she may as well be speaking about him. It truly does feel like fate, that all their choices have brought them here, together.

“Time passes in moments,” she says. “Moments which, rushing past, define the path of a life just as surely as they lead towards its end. And what exactly am I doing with my life, Mulder?”

She says it softly, tiredly, to him but to herself, mostly. He lets that sink in, trying not to think about his own life and how it seems to be racing towards its end much faster than he’d like.

“You’ve done so much,” he says with utter sincerity. “For your family, for the Bureau. For the X files… for me.”

“Why doesn’t it feel that way, then?” she asks. “So much has happened, but also… so little.” She yawns, her eyes unfocused, staring ahead. 

He wonders if she’s talking about him, about them. If she’s wanted to make them into something different, like he has, and stopped herself. Or maybe she’s just wishing she could get away from him, start the kind of life she wants far away from all of this.

“I think you may be right, though,” he replies. “What you said earlier. When nothing happens… there must be a reason.

“I wish I knew that reason, Mulder.”

He wishes he knew, too. Seven years together and they still manage to dance in circles around their issues. He’s so ready he could scream.

“I don’t know, Scully. I just find it hard to believe.”

“Which part?” she asks with a smile, probably considering the fact that he rarely finds it hard to believe anything.

“The part where I go away for two days and your whole life changes.”

“Mmm, I didn’t say my whole life changed.”

“You speaking to God in a Buddhist temple, God speaking back?”

“Mmm,” she mumbles sleepily. “And I didn’t say that God spoke back. I said that I had some kind of a vision.”

“Well for you, that’s like saying you’re having David Crosby’s baby.”

She smiles to herself, thoughtful. Calm. He loves her this way, so much. He loves her all of the ways. “What is it?” he asks.

“I once considered spending my whole life with this man.” She shakes her head. “What I would have missed.”

He marvels at this, that even with everything she’s been through, all of the horrible, awful things she _would_ have missed, her meaning is clear: she wants to be here, now. With him. In spite of everything.

“I don’t think you can know,” he says thoughtfully. “How many different lives would we be leading if we made different choices? We don’t know.”

Her voice turns even more serious. “What if there was only one choice? And all the other ones were wrong… And there were signs along the way to pay attention to?” She’s tired, he can tell. But he can also tell she’s thought hard about this.

“Then all the choices would then lead to this very moment. One wrong turn and we wouldn’t be sitting here together, and that says a lot. A lot, a lot, a lot. Probably more than we should be getting into at this late hour.”

He turns to look, to share a laugh, but she’s asleep, perfectly at peace. His heart is so full of her he can barely contain it anymore.

He reaches out to move a bit of hair out of her face, gently tucking it behind her ear. When she’s asleep he’s free to watch her, to admire her features, to dream about what could be. He’s never wanted anything more than he wants her right now.

And that night, when she finally makes her decision and comes to him in the dark, when they finally crash into one another like two colliding stars, he does not think of disease, or aliens, or conspiracy, or death. These things do not cross his mind once.

Instead he thinks of life anew, a life that’s just beginning. He thinks of her hands finally touching him everywhere, his mouth finally upon hers, tasting her. Their ultimate leap towards intimacy.

He thinks only of her, and how she is finally his.

  
  
  


**brand x**

 

When he coughed up blood in the autopsy bay, he was absolutely certain his secret had been blown. But no: it was only fate knocking again.

His thoughts had been dire. Would he die now, in North Carolina, because of a pair of lungs full of tobacco beetle larvae? Would Scully never have to learn he’d lied to her all these months?

It’s been two weeks since the incident, two weeks since they started this new aspect of their partnership, and while he’s spent ninety percent of it recovering, he’d spent the prior ten percent being blissfully, uncharacteristically happy.

It had been too good to be true. Of course it was.

Now he’s been thrust back into reality, studying brain scans on the wall in the back room of his office. He’d requested them on his last day in the hospital. He didn’t want to, out of fear, but he asked nonetheless out of hope: hope that maybe his fortunes have changed. Maybe now that he’s starting to find his way, starting to find some real happiness, his health might improve.

Stranger things have happened.

Even now, especially now, he can’t tell her the truth. He’s wanted what he has now with Scully so badly for so long, the last thing he wants to do is anything that might ruin their happiness. Even if that means ignoring the hard evidence glowing in front of him, blobs of color on a piece of acetate that he can only decipher as a death omen.

Maybe Scully wouldn’t approve. Maybe this course of action is, in fact, selfish and irresponsible. But if these are truly the final weeks or months of his life, he decides he’s earned the right to be selfish.

They’ve wasted so much time already.

  
  
  


**hollywood a.d.**

 

It’s a strange feeling being so happy. He isn’t used to the change, it’s jarring and unnatural, but wonderful.

It feels like they’re in some foreign land, but it’s only a hotel somewhere in Los Angeles. _The Lazarus Bowl_ might have been terrible, but their subsequent evening and activities certainly were not.

The morning light is streaming in through the enormous windows of the ridiculous suite they probably shouldn’t be sharing. But he’s stopped caring about such things, to the extent he cared about them before, which was not much. She’s resting her head on his chest, her fingers tracing imaginary lines down his shoulders, around his bicep. Discovering each other in this way has been the greatest quest of his life and he feels this with absolute certainty. He lets her explore.

“You have a freckle right here on your arm I’ve never noticed before,” she says, softly circling it with her fingertip.

“Why would you?” he asks. “It’s not as if I walk around at work with my shirt off.”

“Which is unfortunate, really,” she replies. He can feel her smiling. His own fingers drift down her back and she shivers with delight, adjusting her naked body to lie on top of his. He threads his fingers into her hair and she lifts her head up to kiss him, and he simply revels in her; this amazing woman he’s so lucky to be with. He can’t believe after so long they have finally arrived here.

“I’ll start doing it if you do,” he offers. She leans down to bite his shoulder affectionately, then yelps as he flips her over, onto her back. “Not so fast,” he warns. “Now it’s my turn.”

She holds still, trying not to giggle as he drags his finger along her skin. “There are several here I’ve never noticed either,” he says as he moves from freckle to freckle. Scully squeezes her eyes shut, smiling. “What time is our flight, Scully? Because this could take a while.”

“We’ll catch the next one,” she says, fully prepared to miss their flight, to not move a muscle. To stay right here, wrapped up in his arms as long as possible. Every time thoughts of his illness cross his mind he pushes them away. He wants to stay here, too. They’re far from home, far from all of the things he’d like to forget.

“This one,” he says, his finger stopping at a small freckle on her ribcage. “I think this one is my favorite.” He leans down to kiss the freckle, trailing kisses along her ribcage, his nose brushing the underside of her breasts. She giggles a bit. He thinks she might be ticklish but doesn’t want to ruin the moment.

“You have a favorite, Mulder?” she says with a smile. He would do anything to keep seeing that smile. Anything. Telling her anything that would make it go away is, quite frankly, something he isn’t interested in doing.

“Today, at least. Tomorrow might be another story,” he grins.

“Then I’ll ask you again tomorrow,” she says. “And the day after that. Until you run out of favorites.”

“That will never happen, Scully,” he replies. He’s being completely sincere. He doesn’t know how much longer they have together, but he does know he will keep discovering new freckles on Scully’s body until the day he dies.

She weaves her fingers into his hair, urging him up to kiss her, which he does. He kisses her deeply, slowly. He’s never kissed anyone like this in his life. He’s never loved another soul the way he knows he loves Scully, and he doesn’t think he could fall more deeply if he tried.

She nudges her knees into his sides and he takes the hint, rising up onto his own. She wraps her legs around him as he settles between them. She feels so small beneath him and he doesn’t want to crush her but she’s tougher than anyone he knows.

Her hands travel down his face, fingertips tracing his jawline. She arches her body into him and he responds, knowing that whatever else may happen, this, right now, feels much too good to stop. He doesn’t care about his health, his future, any of it, in these moments when she wants him this way. And he wants as much of her as he can get. He wants to fill his days and nights with her.

She pulls back from the kiss with his face between her hands, looking up at him, and he thinks of a time only months ago when she held his face the same way, too afraid to kiss him. She smiles and the corners of her eyes scrunch up in that way he’s getting used to, the way they do when she’s happy. He wants her to be happy so badly. He’s happy, too. He loves her more than anything but it’s too hard to tell her as much when their prospects are so bleak.

“What can I do to keep seeing that smile, Scully?” he asks. “What do you want?”

She looks at him tenderly and smoothes his hair back from his forehead. “Just this,” she replies. “Just you.”

He doesn’t want to imagine what it will be like for her when he’s gone, when she loses him for good. It’s so hard now, holding her, knowing there has to be an end. Of course there will be an end; nothing in the world lasts forever. But they’ve had so little time together like this.

He cannot give her his future, but he can give her his present. So every single time he will give that to her, all of his love, everything he has, everything he can to make her believe the things he cannot say.

  
  
  
  


**fight club**

 

The doctor in Kansas City notices it right away. After the fight night, he and Scully (along with half the audience in the arena) are transported to the hospital, in fact to separate hospitals, so large is the patient intake this evening.

This particular doctor approaches him with apprehension. She is petite, with dark skin and deep brown eyes that betray sympathy, but her demeanor is familiar; she’s a woman making her way in a man’s world. She reminds him of Scully instantly. He can tell she must see the pain in his eyes, the pain that’s certainly worse than the pain in his head.

“I already know,” he says, wanting to spare the doctor from delivering yet another piece of bad news.

“Okay,” she says cautiously. “And… what is it you know, exactly, Mr. Mulder?”

He sighs. “Enough to know that whatever you’ve done to heal my war wounds isn’t going to fix me, doctor.”

She says nothing for a moment and looks at him with pity, sparing him the laundry list of what they’ve discovered, what they know, what they don’t know, that they have no earthly idea how to proceed. But for the first time in months he sees confirmation in a doctor’s eyes: a death sentence, plain and simple. It’s real now, more real than it’s ever been before.

Closing his eyes he thinks of Scully instantly, but not the impact of him dying on her. Rather, he thinks of her alone in the oncology wing of Holy Cross Memorial, receiving the same sentence.

_You’re the only one I’ve called._

She’d told him and only him immediately. He couldn’t give her the same courtesy and now it’s certainly too late. Guilt attempts to stab at his heart but at this point the guilt can’t penetrate the barrier of hopelessness that’s surrounding it. He’s never considered himself a nihilist but nothing seems to matter anymore.

He feels the doctor sit down at the foot of his bed and his eyes open.

“I’m not sure this will help, but I think I know what you’re going through right now. My husband died of colon cancer three years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. It’s automatic, obligatory, but he feels for her as much as he possibly can.

She gives him a rueful smile. “One thing I learned is that every moment has more weight when you realize you have fewer. They’re precious. It’s a gift, in a way.”

He regards her thoughtfully, wondering how often she’s dispensed this advice, if it truly helped her. He wants to believe.

“Thank you,” is all he can think to say. She nods and leaves him alone, and all he knows is he wants more of these moments. He wants to get back home, back to Scully, as soon as possible.

  
  
  
  
  


**je souhaite**

 

He’s been thinking about his three wishes. He’s had an entire plane ride to ponder, deliberate, contemplate. And there are a lot of things he wants. A lot, a lot, a lot.

His quest has been fruitful, more so than he ever anticipated. He’s found the truth about his sister, he’s found as much proof of extraterrestrial life as he can ever expect to find, even though that proof is currently killing him.

Above everything else he wants Scully to be happy. He wants that more than he wants to live, more than he wants to be cured.

“What would you do, Scully?” he asks her as they fly home. The jinni has disappeared and Scully has her head on his shoulder, her hand in his. They fly this way now, like a couple. She’s stopped caring who sees them anymore.

“Mmm?” she asks, tired. She’s exhausted and disappointed and embarrassed after her invisible corpse disappeared, and probably has very little patience at the moment to entertain his musings on genies and wishes.

“If you had three wishes,” he clarifies. “If you were me.”

“Well, I’m not you,” she replies. “And mine would probably be completely different than yours.”

“I want to know.”

She sighs, nuzzling into his jacket. “I don’t know, Mulder. I’d have to think about it.” She closes her eyes and falls asleep on his shoulder.

By the time they are back home, he’s made up his mind. First, he’s going to wish to cure himself. Then, he’s going to wish for Scully’s happiness. As for the third one… well, he’s saving that third one for the entire world.

But Jenn’s words get under his skin a bit. If he uses his wishes only for personal gain, he’s no different than all the others. And he is different, no matter what anyone says.

He’s no chimpanzee with a revolver. He’s Fox Mulder. And he’s going to do this right.

The world first. Then, Scully. Then himself.

_That was the plan, anyway…_

Feeling exactly like said chimpanzee, he’s now down to one wish. _One_. It feels like a cruel joke. And he can’t choose himself over Scully, over the world. He can’t do it. It’s just not who he is.

Scully tells him he shouldn’t be doing this at all, and he wonders if she’s right: if anyone should be harnessing such power, circumventing the natural order of things. He told her himself not too long ago that perhaps nothing happens for a reason. If he denies that to the world, then what has any of it meant? All of their work, their sacrifices, not to mention the sacrifices of countless others.

Does any of it mean anything at all if he does this? If he’s even able to do it properly?

It doesn’t feel right. It’s too easy. Scully is right: that’s what life is, a struggle. A journey. He thinks of the two of them and how long it took them, how fucking long the road has been to get them to exactly where they are right now. How all of it becomes meaningless in an instant if he undermines that struggle.

He is Fox Mulder. He might be the only person with the courage to do the right thing. And there is only one right thing to do in his situation.

Later when he’s back on his couch with Scully, he feels like he’s where he belongs, wish or no wish. She tells him she’s happy and he believes her. He’s alive, at least for now. And he will not give up.

  
  
  


**chimera**

 

The air is warm and pleasant in Raleigh, and he stands next to Scully at the gravesite of his mother. Birds are chirping in the nearby loblolly pines. She grew up here, and while it isn’t home to Mulder, a sense of peace washes over him.

He’d been angry that night when Scully told him his mother had committed suicide. Angry at himself, mostly, for not being there when he should have been. But he’d been certain she was about to reveal the truth to him, and her life had been cut short not by her own hand but by some unknown entity, some outside force in an effort to keep her mouth shut. That was easier to accept, to believe, than his own mother choosing to end her own life before unburdening herself.

Is Mulder burdened, standing here, now, beside his constant? Her presence is a comfort, her hand warm, life affirming. Other than more time, could he want for anything?

“Are you okay?” Scully asks softly. She leans into him.  He doesn’t really respond, just squeezes her hand. “Your mother was doing you a kindness, Mulder,” she says suddenly. “I hope you can live with that.”

His breath catches in his throat. It hits too close to home and he isn’t prepared. “What do you mean?” he asks carefully.

“She didn’t want you to see her suffering. She didn’t want that to be your final memory of her.”

It’s rigid, but compassionate. Exactly what a doctor might say. And he’s certain it’s exactly what Scully would say in ninety nine percent of situations. But will she feel the same when he’s gone? Would she see it the same way? As a kindness?

“Do you really believe that?” he asks.

“It may be difficult to understand... but I think she did what she thought was best,” she says quietly with another squeeze of his hand. “She loved you.”

_She loved you._

He heard it in her thoughts back when he read minds, _I love you, my darling boy_ , words so rarely spoken by his own mother aloud. Maybe it’s why he has such a hard time saying it himself. But he always knew.

He turns to Scully and wraps his arms around her tightly, and she buries her head into his chest. They stay this way for a long, long time, hearts beating, time passing in moments. Every single moment precious.

After who knows how long, his phone buzzes, bringing them back to reality. She releases him and he checks the caller: Skinner. After a short chat he hangs up.

“Skinner wants us on a stakeout.”

“What kind of stakeout?” she asks dubiously.

“Suspected sex trafficking ring. They’re setting us up in a fifth floor walkup across the street. You ready to have pizza every night? Maybe share a sleeping bag?” he grins.

Scully groans. “No fraternizing, Mulder.”

“Your call.”

She takes his hand and they both give his mother a final moment. She’d be happy, he thinks, that for at least the remainder of his life he’s chosen to live a little.

  
  
  


**the gift**

 

Rain pounds down upon his windshield as he barrels towards Squamash, Pennsyvania. Scully doesn’t know where he’s been all day, and he certainly can’t tell her where he’s headed.

Months it’s been, months since he learned he was ill. And although he only learned of the seriousness of his disease recently he never once thought a cure was possible. He’d resigned himself to his fate, whatever and whenever that may be.

But the closer he gets to his expiration date the more desperate he becomes. So desperate he’s using up a Saturday to visit a shaman that could help him.

_A shaman._

He knows this can work, he’s seen it. Scully would probably never believe it if he told her anyway. It’s not the first time Mulder has considered such an extreme solution possible. And if this works, well… if it works, it won’t matter what Scully believes.

Hey lays there, on the floor, ready to submit himself to this creature. It comes closer, and closer… but when the moment arrives, Mulder falters. He thinks of the Great Mutato. The beast-woman in Jersey. Clyde Bruckman. Dozens of others that perhaps he alone could empathize with, all of them destined by design to meet some horrible fate.

He pictures Jenn the jinni, free somewhere, watching the world go by.

Yet again, he cannot do this. He cannot add to this creature’s suffering, even to save himself from a similar fate.

He does what must be done. The three bullets he fires directly into its head are a kindness, and although he’s given up perhaps his last shot at surviving, he feels a strange sense of peace as he drives away, knowing he’s done the right thing.

The ache in his head lingers. He wonders if Scully would agree. He wonders about that moment sometime in the future when she learns he’s died, and what that will be like for her. It’s not as if they both haven’t experienced that fear before, on multiple occasions. They’ve both had a knack over the years for escaping death. But he will not escape this. What then?

His memory flashes to a moment a couple years ago, when he thought he’d lost her.

_"Mulder? It’s Skinner.”_

_“What is it, sir?”_

_There’s a pause. “It’s Agent Scully.” The three words he’s never wanted to hear come out of Skinner’s mouth in any context whatsoever, because he knows what it means. It means she’s in trouble, or hurting, or dead, all because he wasn’t there to stop it._

_“What, where is she? Is she okay?”_

_“She’s been shot. She’s in critical condition.”_

_“Where? Where is she?” The panic sets in. Shot by whom? Alfred Fellig? He should have been on a plane days ago, Kersh or no Kersh. He should have been by her side._

_“The University Medical Center, in New York. She’s in surgery and they aren’t admitting visitors yet.”_

_There's nothing more Skinner can possibly say to add to this conversation and he needs to be on a plane, so he hangs up. He doesn’t pack a bag, he just goes._

_The flight is short but feels interminable. Up in the air it seems as if everything on the ground has stopped but he knows it hasn’t. Scully could be dying, life draining away from her, and he’s stuck in this metal tube with a bunch of strangers, unable to hold her hand. He thinks of her abduction, her cancer, her very career as an FBI agent and how many times he’s had this same fear of losing her. How real and terrifying it has been every single time._

He thinks of how it felt arriving at the hospital, seeing the life draining away from her, vivid flashbacks of Scully on her deathbed two years prior inescapable. He'd lost her. She'd been a dead woman. And yet... somehow, she escaped death again.

_Mulder, I don't even know how I entertained the thought. People don't live forever._

He wasn’t sure if, at the time, Scully truly believed Alfred Fellig could live forever. He wasn’t even sure what he believed. But that was before; before he’d found happiness in a way he never thought he could.

For the first time in his life he wishes living forever was possible. It isn’t fair that this is happening to him when he’s finally figured out a way to be happy.

  
  
  


 

**requiem**

 

They’re sitting in her car at the airport. He’s asked her to stay behind while he goes to Bellefleur, and she’s accepted his decision. Things are different now; when he fears for her safety, for her life, she will stay. She will give him that relief.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” she says. “I really do.”

He smiles. “Well, whatever’s out there, or not out there, I know exactly what I’ll have when I get back.”

Her eyes look sad, and he’s not sure why, but he doesn’t have time to wonder because she leans in and their lips are touching, first softly but then time seems to expand as his mouth moves over hers, memorizing every texture, every taste, every movement. Her fingers wrap around his head and disappear into the soft strands of hair, moving all around his scalp. He used to think her touch alone could cure him, would cure him, and he’s never wanted to believe it more.

He kisses her with every intention of coming back, but without a course charted for moving forward. He’s no longer at the helm of the ship that is his own life anymore, much less hers.

And he thinks of the moment his lips first touched hers on New Year’s Eve, a moment of such hope and promise. How it felt like the beginning of something wonderful, not the beginning of the end.

Almost eight years of their lives are contained into a single kiss goodbye; one that he doesn’t yet know will be goodbye for good. He pulls away slowly, holding her face, and looks into her eyes. He sees young Dana Katherine Scully, the plucky scientist sent down to the basement to destroy his life but who actually ended up saving it. And he sees today’s Scully, his Scully; mind, body, and soul.

His constant. His touchstone.

She’s safe right now, and alive, and has no fear. She doesn’t know he’s slipping away from her.

Ignorance is the only thing he can give her right now. It’s an act of kindness.

An act of love.

 

***

 

His head aches and his heart breaks. He sees the ship and part of him says _stay, Scully needs you,_ and the other part says _go, this is your destiny._ The first part is him. That second part, though… he doesn’t know what it is. Perhaps it’s the disease talking. Perhaps it’s the alien physiology within him simply trying to go home.

Whatever it is, it’s powerful. He goes.

As he steps into the light he feels a strange sense of freedom, of release. Maybe this is the way it’s supposed to be, the only explanation she will be able to live with. And his last thought is a memory, one that comes through as loudly and clearly as the white light surrounding him, a truth he once spoke to Scully that had borne out for him the moment he held her face, called her his constant, and decided to change his life:

_Death only looks for you once you seek its opposite._

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Dialogue from "The Sixth Extinction: Amor Fati" by Chris Carter & David Duchovny.  
> Dialogue from "Sein Und Zeit/ Closure" by Chris Carter & Frank Spotnitz.  
> Dialogue from "X-Cops" by Vince Gilligan.  
> Dialogue from "all things" by Gillian Anderson.  
> Dialogue from "Tithonus" by Vince Gilligan.  
>  
> 
> Thanks for reading! Feedback is always appreciated.


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